Christmas Day 2007. John 1.
Hugh Mackay is one of
At one level, we’ve never
had it so good – as we heard ad nauseam through the recent federal election
campaign. Notwithstanding our increasing affluence, Mackay’s research paints a
troubling picture. There has been an ugly skewing of our priorities –
political, communal and personal.
It’s true that real wages
have risen for most. Yet the gap between the highest and the lowest paid has
widened enormously. And despite our new wealth, we’re in debt to our eyeballs.
In the last 6 years the nation’s total credit card debt has tripled to $40
billion.
Perhaps the greatest
revolution of the last quarter century has been the evolving role of women –
evidenced by the fact that 75% now participate in the paid workforce. But this highly
desirable emancipation has not led to a greater sense of freedom of choice for
most women, any more than it has for most men.
Nor has the participation
of increasing numbers of women in the workforce made for gentler, more
cooperative workplaces, which have become increasingly fraught and competitive.
Those in full time jobs work longer, and are monitored with increasing rigour. At the same time millions of casuals and part
timers are under-employed. At all income levels there has been a steep fall in
job security and employee loyalty. On the index of work-family imbalance,
The IT revolution has been
at best a mixed blessing. The internet, emails, mobile phones, SMS, laptops, Blackberrys and teleconferencing - all these contribute to the unrelenting
speed and highly intrusive penetration of the culture of busyness.
It’s not surprising that
all this brings social consequences. Three areas of casualty are identified in
Mackay’s research. The first is family. Many young adults postpone marriage and
children to their thirties or forties, or give the notion away entirely. 76 %
of couples live together before marriage, up from 16% only a generation ago.
Divorce rates are, at more than 40%, historically high. The birth rate, at 1.7
babies per woman, is historically low.
Our health and wellbeing
has suffered. Obesity, depression, anxiety, loneliness, drug use, alcoholism,
gambling, porn consumption have all increased significantly.
The third casualty has been
our capacity for tolerance and idealism – the great Australian fair go. Highly
stressed people either lash out or retreat in. We have the world’s highest rate
of serious assault, and the curious phenomenon of ever expanding houses for
ever shrinking households. New manifestations of bigotry point to an emerging
tendency to scapegoat the marginalised and to demand the quick fix.
The practice of organised
religion has fallen, as the new religion of selfishness and materialism has
flourished. Increasingly our material aspirations are met – but our search for
meaning has become derailed.
And the word became flesh,
and dwelt among us. For we who are Christian, Christmas celebrates that most
audacious of all claims – that God became one with us. In the birth of this
tiny babe, God identifies fully and completely with our common humanity – takes
it on and takes it into God’s very self. Do not for a moment let the sanitised chocolate
box images, and sentimental popular songs blind you to the fact that God
appeared in human form in raw historical reality. We see a pregnant young girl, unmarried in a
culture which harshly condemned sexual impropriety; a country under foreign
occupation; a journey with her man to register for the privilege of paying
taxes to the occupier. A baby born in a stable, destined for a life of
misunderstanding and struggle and the brutal and untimely death of the
political traitor.
God became flesh – and God
becomes flesh in our historical reality.
But if we only see the
identification of God with frail and fallible humanity, we have seen only half
the story. For the word which became flesh was in the beginning with God. All
things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was
made. In him was life and the life was the light of all people.
The birth of the baby Jesus
was in identification with our humanity. But it also offered at one and the
same time a vehicle for the transformation of our humanity. That’s what the
Christmas story points to with its shepherds and angels, its burning star and
worshipping magi. That in following this babe, in letting the story of his life
and death, his resurrection and ascension so permeate your being and shape you
that your own story is reinterpreted and reorientated. That you allow the way
you see and interact with the world to be turned on its head by the call of
Christ to follow in his footsteps of love and service.
In theological terms this
means that you know both the immanence of God, or God’s intimate closeness to
humankind and God’s transcendence – the otherness of God, calling us beyond the
here and now to become what we have in us to be – fully human, fully alive,
with meaning and purpose, with destiny, with hope, with a future.
It’s no coincidence that
Mackay’s research identifies an increased interest in religion and spirituality
in contemporary
For the light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
© The Right Reverend John Parkes, Assistant Bishop and
Dean of St John’s Cathedral Brisbane.
[i] Advance